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DISCUSSION, TEST RESULTS

 * Original msg to: Esondrmn-at-aol-dot-com

Quoting Ed Sonderman:

 ES> Thanks for your recent responses.
 
I apologize for my prolonged absence. As I said on the phone, my
local BBS mail function was down for 5 days.

 ES> In this recent test, I did not have the welder in the        
 ES> circuit.  Only 7,000W of resistive load.  I still do not     
 ES> know why the 2 12kv 30ma neons perform better.  I only get   
 ES> 10A of primary current.  Do I need to get another 5,000 or   
 ES> 10,000 watts of resistive load and use it all in parallel?   
 ES> I will have oven elements all over the basement.  

This is going to sound cheesy, but it works, and it is both cheap
and easy to set up.

CHEESY POLE PIG RESISTIVE BALLAST

Ingredients:

1 heavy duty plastic office wastebasket, or plastic 5 gallon
bucket.

Two sections of hard copper water pipe, about two feet long,
about 1 inch in diameter.

Two or three teaspoons of baking soda

Some plastic or marine grade plywood supports

*****************************************************************

Take the plastic container and fill it 3/4 full of tap water.
Dope with two or three teaspoons of BAKING SODA (do not use other
salts which will produce chlorine gas). Friction fit the two
copper pipes into some form of mounting bracket (plastic or
marine grade plywood, drill oversized holes, wedge in the pipes)
which will allow the pipes to be held firmly, but which allows
release so the pipes may be raised and lowered into the bucket of
doped water. Connect the pipes in series with the pole pig
primary.

This is a simple water rheostat, and it will work amazingly well.
The current flow is adjusted by simply raising and lowering the
copper electrodes into the water bath. With the pipes fully
submerged, and three teaspoons of baking soda in four gallons of
water, you can run about twenty or so amps through the water.
With the pipes raised the current can be reduced to a trickle.

The water has a very high heat capacity. It will absorb plenty of
energy before heating to the point the plastic will melt, and
this can be increased by providing an agitator. Generally fifteen
or twenty minutes of coiling can be run through a water rheostat
before the water needs to cool down, but a real advantage is the
hot water and be poured down the drain and replaced with cold
water (freshly doped) in a few minutes, for a fraction of a cent.

A water rheostat is cheap and easy to make, it offers a very
smooth and widely adjustable current range, it does not take up a
lot of room, and it does not heat up the work area like wire
resistance or heating elements.

 ES> How about trying the pig with no ballast?  

Not until all of the bugs are worked out and everything has been
settled in.

 ES> I'm ever going to input 5kva, I need to get the primary      
 ES> current up to 20 or 30 amps. 

Try the cheap and easy water rheostat above. It will do the job.

 ES> Still no word on my commercial capacitor.

Like you said, better them blowing the caps than you.

 ES> When I said I get occasional pops from the rotary, it is     
 ES> accompanied by flashes - like it must be a discharge of some 
 ES> sort. What exactly is a kickback in the gap?  What causes it 
 ES> and how do I prevent it? 

Mismatches between the cap and power supply may cause this
problem, as well as a gap speed that is way off. It is caused
when the capacitor is fully charged, but the electrodes are not
in posistion to fire. The cap unloads prematurely, and usually
the safety gap fires. Reset your safety gap a little closer to
take up the "slop". This coil system still needs some fine tuning
to smooth out the gap, power supply, and control circuit bugs.

 ES> BTW, My friends son that is doing a research paper on ball   
 ES> lightning is coming over tomorrow night with an experiment   
 ES> to see if we can make some. This kid is sharp - he aced the  
 ES> math portion of his SATs.

How about posting an outline of the experiment? Did you get any
of the reference material I suggested?

Richard Quick


... If all else fails... Throw another megavolt across it!
___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12